Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. Although the 5-year survival rate is near 100%, up to 35% of patients will develop recurrent disease. High risk patients are increasingly undergoing radical prostatectomy, which is curative in many cases. Additional therapies have substantial comorbidities and are not warranted, unless there is a high probability of disease recurrence. A reliable prognostic biomarker to identify patient recurrence status at the time of surgical intervention is needed, to support management of adjuvant therapy.

Soluble endoglin (sCD105) is a cell surface transforming growth factor-β coreceptor that has been described as a serum biomarker in breast, colon and prostate cancer. Placencio-Hickok et al. examined sCD105 as a blood-based prognostic biomarker for disease recurrence following prostatectomy. They assessed plasma samples from 181 prostate cancer patients which had been collected in 2002−2012 from prostatectomy cases from the Prostate Cancer Biorepository Network at the University of Washington.

Elevated sCD105 was found to be associated with recurrence-free survival of prostate cancer patients. There was an inverse correlation of presurgical prostate-specific antigen and sCD105 within 5 years of prostatectomy. There was no significant association of sCD105 with either Gleason grade or pathologic stage of the disease. Thus, sCD105 may serve as a prognostic biomarker to determine prostate cancer recurrence, which may aid in treatment decision-making following radical prostatectomy.

Read the full article in Endocrine-Related Cancer 27 1−9